


and sometimes you're the track

by Ihniwid



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: F/M, FFH SPOILERS, Fun!, Good Friends Ned Leeds and Michelle Jones, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Near Death Experiences, Peter Parker Has Panic Attacks, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Protection Squad, Support Systems, in which causes have effects, like. trauma, lurch is the frankenbutler from addam's family, pre-post credits scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 23:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20105146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ihniwid/pseuds/Ihniwid
Summary: "Alright, welcome to the first inaugural meeting of the Friends of Spider-man. First Officer Ned Leeds presiding.”“Ned. What are you officerof?” MJ propped her phone screen up on a spare physics textbook, so that Ned could properly see how unimpressed she was.--------In which Peter Parker brings some baggage back from Europe. Ned and MJ work on a project together. Nothing's okay, not really. But maybe they can keep going anyways.Contains Spider-man: Far From Home spoilers.





	and sometimes you're the track

**Author's Note:**

> tw // discussion of panic attacks and triggers. nothing graphic, nothing violent. but there is a train involved.
> 
> takes place pre-post-credits scenes.

“Alright, welcome to the first inaugural meeting of the Friends of Spider-man. First Officer Ned Leeds presiding.”

MJ gave her phone screen an unimpressed look.

“Ned. What are you officer _of_?” She propped it up on a spare physics textbook.

Ned spun around in a chair, wherever he was. She assumed a cramped bedroom, similar to her cramped bedroom. Maybe more nerdy. He’s probably got towels pressed under the door for “soundproofing”, just in case. Even though he's home alone. Because it's still a secret that Peter is Spider-man.

Crap, that still felt weird as a sentence.

“Uh, the FOS? That you are now a part of? It's pretty exclusive, MJ,” he said, as if he were handing her the key to the city. Does New York have a key? Someone probably dropped it down a sewer grate.

“Yeah, about that. FOS’s already copyrighted. Stands for a curse word and everything.” 

“Wh- no it doesn’t. It stands for Spider-man.”

She hummed. She also heard some furious typing noises, and then some serious frustration noises. Oh, Ned.

“Okay,” he closed a laptop angrily. Not capital-A Angrily, just little-a angrily, because Angrily was reserved for anger with heat behind it, and Ned was simply disappointed in humanity for a brief moment in time. Also, he was way too much of a nerd to ever slam a laptop screen shut that hard. Gingerly, at most. Firmly would be a sign of the end-times.

“Okay,” he repeated, as if reminding himself. “People are terrible. But we’re still friends of Spider-man.” He stopped for a solid second, squinting through the camera. “Hey, wait, you and Peter are still friends, right?”

She hoped so. She wouldn't be hanging out with him otherwise. Pun intended. “Mostly. I’m dating Peter. But I'm keeping Spider-man in the friendzone.”

He sensed this was a test. “Which is a misogynist label that implies men have a right to a woman’s company?” 

She raised an eyebrow. He strained. “...and enforces violent patriarchy?” 

She nodded. “Nice job. But yeah, I'm still a Spider-friend.”

“Right.” He leaned into the frame. Actually _leaned_, and MJ could've sworn he glanced side-to-side like he was checking for _spies_ or something-

Her mental train paused. Okay, wait. Given the current direction of their world, that wasn't too weird of a concept. Anyways...

“The Friends of Spider-man have a solemn duty. A sacred duty. A super important duty. Like, critically critically crucial du- are you working on calculus right now?”

MJ didn't look up. “Math isn't my strong suit.”

“Y- but you beat me in Decathalon every time!”

She shrugged. “Never said I was bad at it. I've just got other, stronger suits.”

“...fine.”

“Plus you said ‘duty’, like, five times.”

“Okay, _no_, I stopped on the fourth-”

“What'd I say? Math.”

“- and this is _important_, Michelle!”

Well, shit. That sounded serious.

“...Okay. I'm listening.” She didn't look up, but she didn't pick the pencil back up, either.

She heard a deep breath whistle through the speaker. “Alright. Well, the Friends of Spider-man, FOS, whatever we're calling it, our job’s pretty important.” Her eyes flickered over to the screen, where Ned looked as intense as she’d seen him in a while. “We take care of Peter where May can't.

“You saw this in action in Europe, a little. Making excuses is a big part of it. Cover stories. Something that lets him get away to do the-” Ned waved his hands vaguely- “Spidey thing, and get back after.”

“Your cover stories are excellent,” she drawled.

“Oh!” Genuine excitement. “Thanks, MJ-”

“I really fell for the one about the staph infection.”

“Hey.” Sarcasm detected! “Hey, now that's way more common than you'd think,” he grumbled.

“And his grandpa’s tragic catheter malfunction?”

“Come on, death of a grandparent is a classic! It worked for Ferris Bueller!” 

“Lots of things worked for entitled white guys in the 80s. And Peter’s an orphan.”

Ned deflated a little. “...Fair. That one was kinda ad-libbed.”

_ “...his, uh, catheter… broke.”_

_“Isn't Peter’s granddad dead?” Glenda Nguyen called back. MJ didn't like Glenda Nguyen._

_“Yes!” Ned exclaimed. “He is now!” _

_He sank back down to his seat, with the air of someone who'd made a mistake they couldn't really reverse course on._

_MJ made another tally mark in the “bullshit excuses for strange absences” column. The brief scribbling was the only sound in the room for a while._

_Ned squirmed. “He’ll be...uh... gone for the day.” _

Well, she shouldn't be too hard on him. He tries. “I mean, they did work. Nobody paid too much attention.”

Hum. “Yeah, true. That's lucky.”

“I don't think luck is Peter’s thing.”

Another hum, more reflective this time. “Yeah. Who gets bitten by a radioactive spider on a field trip?”

“...Okay, we’re definitely revisiting that after the meeting. But I meant how he keeps attracting random villains and their end-of-the-world plans.”

“Honestly? Yeah.” His face got serious again. “That's where we come in.”

“Well, it's not like we can help him in a fight. They made me put the mace back.”

“Morningstar.”

“Yeah.”

Ned sighed. “I don't mean_ in _a fight, I mean after it. First aid.”

Something in her lurched at that thought. She didn't want to think about why. “I've taken some classes. I have a mean suture hand.” 

“Nah,” thank God, “He heals too fast to put ‘em in, most of the time. Only when it's really, really bad. And I mean really bad.”

And there it was again. The Lurch. MJ decided to name it after the TV butler- hopefully it would go away when told to, like she was insisting it did right now. 

It didn't seem to follow.

“Has it ever?” She hesitated. “Gotten... really bad?” 

Ned looked like he was having the Lurch somewhere in his forehead, based on distress level. He hesitated. And mumbled something.

“What?” She reached to turn up the volume.

“Peter got hit by a train in Berlin.”

And stopped. 

“I'm sorry, what?”

“Mysterio tried to, uh, kill him. In Germany.” Ned sounded- well, he sounded like he could in this situation. It took visible effort for everything he said. “...The train took him to the Netherlands.”

“You're...Peter- he...” she tried several sentences, but each of them were broken in different ways. “You're saying that he was _dragged_-”

“Oh nononono wait. No. He climbed into a car at some point.” Ned considered his wording. “That still sounds awful.”

Her whole body felt like ice. “Ned, he was_ hit_ by a _train._ It's gonna sound awful no matter what, because it _is_.”

High-speed rail: minimum 120 miles per hour. 160 for newer track. Which was the train from Berlin? 540 tons on an average Amtrak, six cars, how many were there in Europe? In Berlin? On_ Peter?_

Ned could probably see the physics calculations on her face. She couldn't hide her thoughts when math was involved. Feelings, sure, but not when numbers were introduced to them. Cold, hard facts to tell her exactly how dead her boyfriend should be. “MJ-”

“What are his superpowers, Ned? Specifically? Superstrength, super-agility- does he have super healing? Super pain tolerance?”

“MJ-”

“Fast, Ned.” She had paper on hand. Pencil.

“Uh, yes on the first three.”

She looked up. Ned looked worried.

“First three?” 

“He said-” Stop hesitating, Ned. “He said it still hurts.” Hesitate more, Ned. Never say anything, Ned. Don't tell me any of this. Tell me all of it.

MJ breathed. 

...For a while.

When she looked back at Ned’s eyes, they were as concerned as eyes get, outside of cartoons. Though he gave ‘em a run for their money; it was close. She knew her face was as blank as ever, so she nodded, once. After a second, he nodded back.

Okay. 

“What can we do?”

Ned held up a couple books to the camera. She leaned in and frowned. “‘Lessons in Anxiety Management’?”

“Hey, it's better than ‘Panic Attacks for Dummies’.”

“Alright, fair enough. I'll talk to my mom; she's a psychologist.”

“That explains a lot.”

“Shut up, nerd.”

“Pssh, alright, as long as you read my gameplan.”

MJ mustered the most disingenuous voice she had. “Your gameplan? Really?”

“Hey, respect senior club members.”

“Right, I forgot how elderly you are. Must have aged extra-fast during the Blip. That explains the wrinkles.” 

Ned tried his best to look dignified. He didn't, but it was a pretty funny expression. She told him so.

“I'll choose to ignore that for the sake of teamwork. Alright, gameplan: the excuses also extend to quick escapes for non-Spider-related occurrences.”

“Attacks.”

“No, not villains, I said non-Spider.”

“Panic attacks.”

“Oh! Yeah.”

MJ tried not to think about how many tallies she had down in the bullshit-excuses column. It was… enough to make her try not to think about it. Keep moving forward. Right.

“Anyways, part two is trying to avoid those in the first place. Last time with Toomes it was tight spaces- he had a thing about water leaks in the school but not about water in general, I mean he was cool with swimming and sinks and toilets and stuff so I'm still not sure why- MJ?”

She'd met Liz's dad. He volunteered to chaperone freshman homecoming. She realized she was holding the pencil in a very knife-like fashion. She put it down.

“Yep. Got it. You say ‘last time’ as in last time someone tried to kill him, right?”

“MJ, he’s in prison.”

“Accidents happen.”

“MJ.”

She exhaled sharply through her nose. Nod.

Nod. “So this time I'm thinking… loud noises? Maybe? ...What are trains like? I've never actually been on one.”

“It's pretty much the subway. But nicer.” She thought about it. “A lot nicer.”

“Actually, yeah, I don't think we've taken the subway together since Europe. Huh. I didn't really think about it since Happy can drive, but. Yeah, that'll do it.” Ned scribbled something down. Did he have a notebook on this? MJ got out a spare notebook for this.

“Traffic?” she suggested.

“No, he seems alright walking home with me.”

“Yeah. Slow.”

“Yeah, well, that's New York.”

“Guess it works out, here.”

“Guess it does?”

They fell silent for a while then. 

Eventually, her phone buzzed with a battery alert. It was getting pretty late.

“Ned. I gotta go soon. Any notes before… ‘the meeting’ wraps up?” He was frowning, slightly. Pensive. 

“Everything bad happens in Berlin. Hitler. Trains. The whole thing with the Wall. Having to beat up Captain America with his own shield,” he said.

“...Was that last one a reference to Hitler?”

“Nah. Peter’s just that cool.”

MJ leaned back. “Yeah. Yeah, he is,” she said.

Quiet. Peaceful, though. Peaceful.

Ned piped up first. “Peter Parker Protection Squad? PPPS, for short?”

“Oh, you know it. Especially with all that duty.”

“Shut up, MJ.”

“‘Night, Mr. President.”

“Pres-? Oh, Peter Parker Protection... President.” This pause sounded awfully thoughtful, for this late at night. 

“...I like it. ‘Night, MJ.”

“Ned?”

“Huh?”

“Thanks.”

It was hard sometimes, the close thing. She hoped he got it, but she wasn't going to say it if he didn't. 

“...You too, MJ.”

The call ended. Michelle Jones got up, set her alarm, set her phone on the bathroom counter to charge, and looked in the mirror at someone who was worried, yes, worried out of her mind- but ready to do what she could about it.

Yeah, he got it. He cared too much not to.

\--------

“Hey, loser. Shanahan’s doing a surprise cabinet-slamming in Anat and Phys about 20 minutes in. Something about instinctual responses.” 

MJ wasn't sure that balding 30-year-olds trying to jumpscare kids without warning inspired a lot of instinctual responses in her, other than the murdery one. Her autonomic nervous system was certainly feeling a fight coming on if he tried that shit again.

Peter blinked. MJ moved on down the hallway.

“Thanks!” she heard significantly further on.

She shared a small nod with Ned as he passed. When he’d brought up the Club Handshake it was an instant veto, but this- this was acceptable. 

MJ accepted a lot of things as the new-normal. So did Peter. But that didn't mean he didn't need help with it- and that was just normal-normal. And, well. She'd never liked Berlin, anyways. 

_Or trains,_ she decided. Too many emissions. _Bad for the environment._

She thought about a world where Peter didn't have Spider-miracle healing powers.

Lurch.

Yeah. Bad environment.

**Author's Note:**

> hello. this was all written in abt three hours on a small phone in a large bed after seeing far from home far from my home. enjoy my pain.
> 
> alternately titled: Far From Home Was Fun and All but Holy Shit Y'all a Teenager Has Been Through Some Fuckin' Shit
> 
> thank for read. ily. thumbs up.


End file.
